Automatic selection of agent-based or agentless monitoring

ABSTRACT

Presented is a method and system for automatically selecting agent-based or agentless monitoring using a configuration management database (CMDB). The method includes determining whether a system is business critical or business non-critical, selecting agent-based monitoring if the system is business critical and selecting agentless monitoring if the system is business non-critical.

BACKGROUND

Management of an information technology (IT) network is not new. Varioussoftware and hardware solutions are available to manage networkarchitecture. However, with IT infrastructures becoming increasingcomplex, it has become quiet a task to monitor system performance, andavailability of applications and services on a vast variety of networkeddevices, to ensure a smooth operation.

The advent of service level agreements (SLA) has made clients moredemanding, thus, putting additional pressure on a network administratorto constantly monitor applications, servers, databases, data, andvarious other components that may form part of a managed networkenvironment. For each of these components, decisions must be madewhether to use specially deployed agents to conduct the monitoring, orto employ an agentless monitoring solution. To enable an efficient ITenvironment, having both agentless and agent-based monitoringdeployments, it is imperative to choose the right solution for eachcomponent in an IT infrastructure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a better understanding of the invention, embodiments will now bedescribed, purely by way of example, with reference to the accompanyingdrawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows a system for automatic selection of an agent-based oragentless monitoring for an information technology system using aconfiguration management database (CMDB) according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 shows a flow chart of a method for automatic selection of anagent-based or agentless monitoring for an information technology systemusing a configuration management database (CMDB) according to anembodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Management of an IT infrastructure requires a monitoring solution thatkeeps IT informed of everything happening in the IT environment. Thesolution should allow IT to monitor each component of the IT environmentto ensure that IT systems are performing at the agreed level and meetingservice level agreements. Agent-based and agentless solutions are twomonitoring solutions that have been commonly used However, combinationof agent based and agent-less monitoring for system performance andavailability management in IT infrastructure is also gaining popularity.

In the agent-based solution, a software module called agent is installedon each IT system (for example, a server) to be monitored. The agentsare configured to collect performance metrics depending on theapplication and the hardware profile of the IT system. The functionalityof the agent also extends to storing of collected data locally, raisingalarms and resolving the same by taking corrective actionsindependently. They can monitor the status (availability andperformance) of applications, servers, and network devices in moredetail than common management tools. However, agents tend to beexpensive and having agents on an IT component comes at a cost of highmaintenance, resource usage, scalability, and deployment complexity.

Agentless technology allows monitoring and management of an ITenvironment remotely, over the network, without having to install agentson the components to be monitored. The agent-less solution involvesmonitoring an IT system remotely by collecting data periodically usingstandard interfaces (such as SNMP). It allows administrators to getmonitoring up and running more quickly. However, agentless monitoringhas its own drawbacks. The agentless monitoring tools do not have thesame depth of features and provide limited control over the IT systembeing monitored. Therefore, while the maintenance and deployment costsare negligible, the relatively high network traffic and thenon-availability of real-time data are big deterrent for agentlessmonitoring solutions.

Selecting an agent-based or agentless monitoring solution for monitoringsystem or application performance and/or availability depends on thecriticality of the system or application to a company's business revenueand processes. Hence, business criticality of the systems plays a majorrole in determining the solution to be deployed to monitor the system. Aconfiguration management database (CMDB) may help in making thatselection.

A CMDB is a comprehensive warehouse of information related to all thecomponents of an IT network. It provides a single central point view ofthe relationships between an IT infrastructure and business services. HPUniversal Configuration Management Database (HP CMDB) is an example ofone such tool. HP CMDB utilizes a data model that accommodates not onlyphysical components such as servers, networking and storage devices, andsoftware but also logical elements key to business service delivery,such as business applications, virtual private networks, end users andservice level agreements.

For clarity and convenience, following definitions are used herein:

The term “system” or “information technology system” refers to, andincludes, an information technology device having any software andhardware configuration.

The term “business critical system” refers to all systems, failure ofwhich impacts either business service or revenue. The performance oravailability of any system that affects a service level agreement (SLA)of an associated business service is also considered a business criticalsystem.

FIG. 1 shows a system 100 for automatic selection of an agent-based oragentless monitoring for an information technology system using aconfiguration management database (CMDB) according to an embodiment.

The system 100 includes a configuration management database (CMDB) 110,a configuration management server 120, network 130, and informationtechnology (IT) systems (140, 142, 144, and 146). It would beappreciated that the components depicted in FIG. 1 are for the purposeof illustration only and the actual components (including their number)may vary depending on the computing architecture deployed forimplementation of the present invention.

Configuration management database (CMDB) 110 describes the configurationitems (CI) 112 in an information technology environment and therelationships between them. A configuration item basically meanscomponent of an IT infrastructure or an item associated with aninfrastructure. A CI may include, for example, servers, computersystems, computer applications, routers, etc. The relationships betweenconfiguration items (CIs) may be created automatically through adiscovery process or inserted manually. Considering that an ITenvironment can be very large, potentially containing thousands of CIs,the CIs and relationships together represent a model of the componentsof an IT environment in which a business functions. The CMDB storesthese relationships and handles the infrastructure data collected andupdated by a discovery process. The discovery process enables collectionof data about an IT environment by discovering the IT infrastructureresources and their interdependencies (relationships). The process candiscover such resources as applications, databases, network devices,different types of servers, and so on. Each discovered IT component isdiscovered and stored in the configuration management database where itis represented as a managed configuration item (CI).

Information technology systems (140, 142, 144 and 146) are connected toa configuration management server 120 through network 130. Theconfiguration management server 120 gathers various details for eachinformation technology system (140, 142, 144 and 146) and stores them inthe configuration management database 110. An information technologysystem may represent a server, software applications, data, storagedevices, networks, etc. The configuration management database mayinclude configuration items (CIs, 112), which are data structuresrepresenting IT resources that are placed under configurationmanagement.

Network 130 may be the internet, an intranet or an extranet. Further,the network may include a wired or wireless connection.

FIG. 2 shows a flow chart of a method for automatic selection of anagent-based or agentless monitoring for an information technology systemusing a configuration management database (CMDB) according to anembodiment.

As mentioned earlier, the term business critical system refers to allsystems, failure of which impacts either business service or revenue. Ifthe performance or availability of any system affects a service levelagreement (SLA) of an associated business service, it is also considereda business critical system.

In an embodiment, as a pre-requisite, the CMDB is populated using adiscovery mechanism and business topology is modeled in CMDB. The impactof a system on a business service or revenue is derived from thebusiness service topology stored in CMDB.

Referring to FIG. 1, step 210 includes determining whether aninformation technology system is business critical or businessnon-critical. This includes determining whether the informationtechnology system is part of a business service topology. The businessservice topology is stored in the configuration management database(CMDB) and impact of a system on a business service or revenue may bederived from the business service topology stored in CMDB. Applicationsbuilt on top of CMDB may be used to find if a system's performance oravailability has an impact on SLA of a business service.

If a determination is made in step 210 that the system is part of abusiness service topology, the method proceeds to step 220, else itproceeds to step 240 (described later).

Step 220 includes determining whether the system impacts a businessservice, revenue or a Service Level Agreement (SLA).

If a determination is made in step 220 that the system impacts abusiness service, revenue or a Service Level Agreement (SLA), the methodproceeds to step 230, wherein an agent-based monitoring is selected forthe system.

If a determination is made in step 220 that the system does not impact abusiness service, revenue or a Service Level Agreement (SLA), themethod, proceeds to step 240.

Step 240 includes evaluating configuration item (CI) properties of anassociated CMDB. As mentioned earlier, configuration items (CIs) may bedefined in the CMDB. A mark-up language may be used to defineconfiguration items. Each CI may have one or more properties(enrichments) that may describe the type of the system (test system,end-user system, etc.), location of a system (for example, whether it'sin DMZ), etc.

If the evaluation made in step 240 leads to a conclusion that the systemis business critical, an agent-based solution is assigned to the system,else, the method proceeds to step 250.

Step 250 includes determining from the configuration item (CI)properties whether the system is manageable with agentless monitoring.

If the determination made in step 250 leads to a conclusion that thesystem is manageable with agentless monitoring, an agentless solution isassigned to the system at step 260, else, the method proceeds to step270.

Step 270 includes selecting agent-based or agentless monitoring based onmodeling of the existing deployment.

The method concludes at step 280.

It would be appreciated that the embodiments described above savessolution deployment time by automating the decision making process. TheIT administrator need not bother about the type of solution that maysuit a particular system. Hence using the proposed solution deploymentcan be done even by a novice user. Further, correct solution is deployedon the right systems, thereby making sure all business critical systemshave the right kind of monitoring solution.

It would be further appreciated that the embodiments within the scope ofthe present invention may be implemented in the form of a computerprogram product including computer-executable instructions, such asprogram code, which may be run on any suitable computing environment inconjunction with a suitable operating system, such as, MicrosoftWindows, Linux or UNIX operating system. Embodiments within the scope ofthe present invention may also include program products comprisingcomputer-readable media for carrying or having computer-executableinstructions or data structures stored thereon. Such computer-readablemedia can be any available media that can be accessed by a generalpurpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, suchcomputer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EPROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM,magnetic disk storage or other storage devices, or any other mediumwhich can be used to carry or store desired program code in the form ofcomputer-executable instructions and which can be accessed by a generalpurpose or special purpose computer.

It should be noted that the above-described embodiment of the presentinvention is for the purpose of illustration only. Although theinvention has been described in conjunction with a specific embodimentthereof, those skilled in the art will appreciate that numerousmodifications are possible without materially departing from theteachings and advantages of the subject matter described herein. Othersubstitutions, modifications and changes may be made without departingfrom the spirit of the present invention.

1. A computer-implemented method for automatically selecting agent-basedor agentless monitoring, the method comprising: determining whether asystem is business critical or business non-critical; selectingagent-based monitoring if the system is business critical; and selectingagentless monitoring if the system is business non-critical.
 2. A methodaccording to claim 1, wherein determining whether a system is businesscritical or business non-critical, comprises: determining whether thesystem is part of a business service topology, wherein the businessservice topology is stored in a configuration management database(CMDB).
 3. A method according to claim 2, further comprising:determining whether the system impacts a business service, revenue or aService Level Agreement (SLA).
 4. A method according to claim 3, furthercomprising: selecting agent-based monitoring, if the system is part of abusiness topology and impacts a business service, revenue or a ServiceLevel Agreement (SLA).
 5. A method according to claim 3, furthercomprising: evaluating configuration item (CI) properties of the CMDB.6. A method according to claim 5, further comprising: selectingagent-based monitoring, if the evaluation of configuration item (CI)properties indicate the system is business critical.
 7. A methodaccording to claim 5, further comprising: determining from theconfiguration item (CI) properties whether the system is manageable withagentless monitoring.
 8. A method according to claim 7, furthercomprising: selecting agentless monitoring, if the determination ofconfiguration item (CI) properties indicate the system is manageablewith agentless monitoring.
 9. A method according to claim 7, furthercomprising: selecting agent-based or agentless monitoring based onmodeling the existing deployment.
 10. A method according to claim 5,wherein configuration item properties include type of the system and/orlocation of the system.
 11. A system for automatically selectingagent-based or agentless monitoring, the system comprising: a pluralityof information technology systems, and a configuration managementdatabase (CMDB) coupled to the plurality of information technologysystems, wherein the program instructions are executable by the CMDB to:determine whether a system is business critical or businessnon-critical; select agent-based monitoring if the system is businesscritical; and select agentless monitoring if the system is businessnon-critical.
 12. A system according to claim 11, further comprisingprogram instructions to determine whether the system is part of abusiness service topology, wherein the business service topology isstored in a configuration management database (CMDB).
 13. A systemaccording to claim 12, further comprising program instructions todetermine whether the system impacts a business service, revenue or aService Level Agreement (SLA).
 14. A computer program comprisingcomputer program means adapted to perform all of the steps of claim 1when said program is run on a computer.
 15. A computer program accordingto claim 14 embodied on a computer readable medium.